FILM

'Zoolander' shows the extremes we accept as life

by Erin Schwartz

1.75 stars out of 5

Last Saturday night the sneak preview of "Serendipity" was sold out. So, the next best thing was Ben Stiller’s new flick "Zoolander"?!? My fingers trembled as I handed over the $7 for a movie I knew would have no positive outcome on my homeostasis, or lack there of.

Still, I gave Stiller the benefit of the doubt, acknowledging he did make me laugh in "Keep the Faith," which I saw on television, never thinking of the idea to put money down on a movie rental.

"Zoolander" begins with a satirical Batman/Austin Powers aura, offering the audience a prediction that whatever this movie tries to bring forth, it won’t be anywhere near reality. Mugatu, a famous fashion designer played by a clowned-out Will Ferrell, is responsible for plotting the scheme of the assassination of the Prime Minister of Malaysia, who is in charge of shutting down Malaysian sweatshops due to the exploitation of workers, and in an effort to bring peace into the country. Mugatu’s infamous fashion line, however, is produced in these sweatshops and without them his powerful industry would go down the drain. In collaboration with Mugatu’s sinister crew, he decides to hypnotize Derek Zoolander (Stiller), the world’s most famous male model, into killing the prime minister. The ultimate goal of Mugatu’s plan was to infiltrate Zoolander’s small brain with views about child labor laws and sweatshops. This hypnotic infiltration, issued by a futuristic method of teaching similar to the method used in the Hollywood hit, "The Matrix," would enable Zoolander to kill the prime minister without coming across any obstacles distracting him from following through with his "teachings."

Through a miraculous descent delivered by Hansel, another male model played by Owen Wilson, the criminal act that was ultimately going to leave Zoolander dead, as all other male models had ended up, was abolished with the help of Hansel’s "intelligence."

Although this movie could be watched, snickered at out of stupidity, and thrown away with other unnecessary memories, one may be able to see the movie does offer an intelligent message. Zoolander clearly portrays stereotypes of male models as similar to the generalized stereotypes of female models. The pure absence of intelligence existing within the male models in this movie didn’t go far outside the stereotype of most female models; that being the maintenance of a very superficial, shallow, and unrealistic existence. Issues such as body weight, which are consistently echoed through the female modeling industry, were also portrayed in the lives of the male models in "Zoolander," yet they didn’t seem as dangerous and influential on their survival, but more something that was used for their own success.

Christine Taylor, who plays a glamorous Time Magazine reporter, admitted her struggle with an eating disorder due to the unrealistic figures of women portrayed as "beautiful." Zoolander and Hansel reacted to this honest and open statement with a chuckle, along with saying how throwing up after every meal is a great way to lose weight fast for a gig. If this movie does nothing else, it re-states how unrealistic and psychologically corrupt the lives of models can be, in turn, reflected in Zoolander’s divergence from reality as a movie itself.

May the moral of the story be then that all subcultures in our society carry on in their lives in their own location of consciousness in this world. Although we are all here together, we may not recognize the drastic extremes we live at as human beings, thus reflected "Zoolander"; where the models live.